


(I think it's called love).

by lalunanam



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Angst, BAMF Higurashi Kagome, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Inuyasha doesn't know how to process his feelings lmao, Kagome is 18., Possessive Behavior, Sex, Sex??, Sexual Content, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27050104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalunanam/pseuds/lalunanam
Summary: Kagome unsettles him in ways he doesn’t comprehend. Inuyasha has never smelledanyoneso strongly before. Not his mother who held him in her arms until he was old enough to walk. Not his old man, whose scent annoyingly clung to the Robe of the Fire Rat for years after his death. Not that bastard Sesshomaru, who Inuyasha hates to acknowledge smells kind of, sort of similar to himself.Not even Kikyo, the woman who had been his first everything.Where there was once only Inuyasha, there is now also Kagome.
Relationships: Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha, Higurashi Kagome/InuYasha/Kikyou, InuYasha/Kikyou (InuYasha)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 67





	(I think it's called love).

**Author's Note:**

> Hii, my first story; how exciting! Lmao my hands are sweaty, but I hope you enjoy it. My goal is to build a collection of moments where Inuyasha and Kagome (poorly) grapple with the fact that they're soulmates cuz why not. I will be taking some liberties and moving things around. I don't want this to exactly follow the original series..anyway. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

“Jeez,” Inuyasha’s tone is biting—much harsher than he intended, but he can’t seem to stop himself as the words tumble from his lips. “You _reek_.”

Kagome shoots him a look. It’s sharp, like his words. She’s clearly bothered by what he’s said, but she says nothing as she takes a seat next to the fire.

_Odd._

“Why do you smell so bad?” Inuyasha presses, bringing a hand up to his nose. Since their first encounter, he’s never particularly liked the way Kagome smells. Because her scent, like everything else about her, overwhelms him. It’s how he had almost immediately realized she wasn’t Kikyo. His nose was hardly ever wrong, and fifty years sealed to a tree hadn’t changed that.

Kikyo had smelled a little like autumn, like pine and fallen leaves. Her scent was mild but pleasant, and Inuyasha had always savored the way she smelled. But the reincarnation, _Kagome_ , has a scent that entirely consumes Inuyasha. Her scent spreads over him and clings to him like dust, settling deep into the woven fabric of his robes and the thick mass of his hair. He even smells her on his skin, her aroma lingering in places he absolutely should not be able to smell her.

Kagome unsettles him in ways he doesn’t comprehend. Inuyasha has never smelled _anyone_ so strongly before. Not his mother who held him in her arms until he was old enough to walk. Not his old man, whose scent annoyingly clung to the Robe of the Fire Rat for _years_ after his death. Not that bastard Sesshomaru, who Inuyasha hates to acknowledge smells kind of, sort of similar to himself. 

Not even Kikyo, the woman who had been his first everything.

Where there was once only Inuyasha, there is now also Kagome.

Inuyasha eyes Kagome wearily, puzzled by her lack of response. By now, she should have been calling him an idiot or shouting that stupid little command that pulls his face closer to _(or through)_ the ground than it was ever meant to be.

He inhales deeply, just to make sure he’s not imagining it, and immediately feels ill. Kagome smells sour, like spoiled food. The stench rolling off of her is almost unbearable. “Hey, I’m talking to you. Why do you smell so horrible, woman?”

“Inuyasha,” Kagome finally concedes, “I’m really not in the mood for this right now.” Her voice comes out a bit lower than usual. It’s throaty and cracked and— _oh_.

“Are you _sick?_ ”

Kagome blinks. “What?”

“Are you fucking deaf, too?” he scoffs. “You’re sick, right? That’s why you smell so bad.”

“You always say I smell bad, Inuyasha.” She sounds defeated. Annoyed, but there’s a distinct lack of fervor that her words usually carry. It’s then that he notices things he wishes he had noticed sooner. The bloom of darkness under her eyes accompanied by the ashen cast of her skin and the uncharacteristic tangled mess of black waves that frame her face. 

_Does her face look thinner?_

“Have you been sleeping?” Inuyasha asks before he intends, his mouth, again, betraying him before his brain can catch up.

She seems shocked, though he’s not sure if her shock is because he’s noticed her now obvious lack of sleep or because this is the first time he’s ever looked at her like _this_. Closely and carefully, with unabashed concern. Kagome is right to be shocked; he’s shocked, too.

Her eyes—

_(suddenly he notices just how big and brown they are)_

—widen a fraction.

“I’ve been studying,” Her voice is even more hushed than before. If not for his keen hearing, he wouldn’t have heard her. “I have a big exam soon, and I _know_ I won’t do well but at the very least, I don’t want to fail.”

Sometimes, Inuyasha forgets Kagome isn’t from this time. 

He shouldn’t forget. Not when she insists on wearing those strange clothes (that show too much skin) and talks about unbelievable things like humans on the moon. Above that, Inuyasha, like Kagome, has fallen through time. He’s seen her home, her family. He’s smelled the putrid air that clouds the village she calls Tokyo. He has seen the curious metal beasts that humans use for transportation. There’s no reason for Inuyasha to forget that Kagome doesn’t belong in this time.

She doesn’t belong here, with him.

Kagome should be a painful reminder of the woman who came before her. The woman he loved who bled, died, and burned. She, irrefutably, does not belong. Yet, Inuyasha forgets.

He forgets because Kagome eats away at him. She’s loud and does reckless things that could get her _killed_. So he has to protect her. She can never mind her own business; she’s always itching to help people. Even people who absolutely don’t deserve her help. He’s not entirely daft, either. He realizes that he is one of those people. He is selfish and, perhaps, unnecessarily cruel to her at times but that’s because this warmhearted, fragile girl from another time terrifies him.

Inuyasha, truly, does not like the way Kagome smells.

_(He loves it)._

He doesn’t like the way her scent weaves its way around with his. 

_He loves it; he craves it._

Swallowing him, like it belongs. Blanketing him, like _she_ belongs. 

“You don’t smell bad.” His voice scares him. He’s tense and acutely aware that his claws, ever sharp, are cutting into the calloused skin on his palms. He hadn’t meant to say that. He hadn’t planned to say anything at all. But she’s looking at him now with eyes even wider than before, so he keeps talking. “You smell nice.” He wonders why even when he compliments her, he spits out his words like an insult. 

“Well, you smell bad _now_ ,” he says hurriedly. 

Though, he wishes he could just shut the fuck up because she’s frowning at his words, eyebrows furrowed and face riddled with confusion. 

“But you don’t always smell bad,” is Inuyasha’s attempt at salvaging what was supposed to be an attempt at comforting Kagome. “That’s how I know you’re sick or tired or whatever…because you smell bad now.”

God, _fuck_. He feels like he’s going to throw up. The back of his throat is tight, and his stomach is in knots. There’s a dull ache pulsing in the palms of his hands from where his nails have now cut deep enough to draw blood. He watches her eyes drop from his face to his hands the moment he starts bleeding. The smell of iron causes his nose to tickle, and he thinks maybe he should—

“— _Inuyasha_ , are you sure you’re not the one who’s sick?” Without warning, she laughs. “I mean, what are you… _why_ are you even?” Her laugh chimes between every word, drowning out the quiet hum of the forest and the overbearing sound of his heart thundering within his chest. It’s the most energetic he’s seen her all day, he realizes.

There’s something sharp, but familiar, in the air now. It’s sweet smelling but smoky, like sugar and flame, overpowering the smell of his blood and shrouding the awful smell from before. 

“Why am I _what_ , Kagome?” He tries to sound rude. Incredulous, even. But he knows his words lack the proper edge. Inuyasha is thankful that the sky is inked black and humans have poor eyesight because he can feel heat rush to his cheeks. The scent intensifies after he says her name. It’s silly, he thinks, how she’s so happy just because he said her name. 

His muscles relax as he flexes his fingers, uncurling his fists as the wounds on his palms begin to heal. There are tears dancing on the corners of her eyes, twinkling alongside the flicker of the fire by their feet. She quiets after a while, when her cheeks are pink from joy and her stomach hurts because, _“I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!”_

It’s silly, too, how happy he is just because she laughed. 

“Did you mean it, though?” she asks him. She doesn’t elaborate, but he understands what she’s asking.

“What a stupid question,” he huffs. He’s desperate to ignore the heat of embarrassment lingering on his cheeks. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

She squints at him through the dark, a proud smile on her lips, “Inuyasha, you’re starting to contradict yourself.”

“Oh, shut up, and go to sleep!” 

She laughs again, and he wills himself to disregard the muddled voice in the back of his head that tells him her laugh is the most wondrous sound he’s ever heard — something akin to bells in the wind. Kagome stands, and he resists the urge to take a step backward when she takes a step forward.

She’s nervous. He sees it when she takes a shaky breath. He hears it when her heart starts beating a little faster, now drumming in tandem with his own anxious heart. He smells it when her scent starts budding like fresh lemon, the bitter smell of citrus blending with the lasting scent of sugar in the air. A fleeting thought that it’s an agreeable smell is quickly pushed away, ashamed he thinks she smells so nice when she’s nervous.

Because he really likes that he makes her nervous.

“Inuyasha,” she says his name sweetly; she’s _always_ saying his name. “You smell nice, too.”

She has to look up at him to meet his eyes, and he wonders if he’s ever spent so much time contemplating the exact shade of brown her eyes are. Brown like soil after rain, brown like the bark of the tree she freed him from, brown like the dark wood of the well that brought her to him. A shade he wants to study and memorize so that he never forgets — 

_(what shade had Kikyo’s eyes been?)_

— Kagome’s eyes. He wants to learn the gentle swell of her pink lips and hold onto the pretty roundness of her cheeks. He wants to remember, always, the slight curl of her midnight colored hair. The warmth of her hands when she touches him. The weight of her on him when he carries her. His greed makes him feel nauseous because he doesn’t understand why he feels like needs these things. 

The realization stings—it _hurts_ —and then, guilt eclipses him when he thinks of Kikyo and wonders, _why is it Kagome?_

“I’m gonna take a bath,” she speaks again when he doesn’t respond. She doesn’t seem to notice that he’s disgruntled.

 _Why is it_ Kagome?

“We can eat dinner after I get back,” she hums, walking past him to grab a change of clothes from her bag.

 _Why is Kagome_ —

“Did you want to eat Cup Noodles again tonight?” Her voice sounds like music. Rhythmic and cheery. The air is beginning to taste sweet against his tongue, the scent of burnt sugar washing over him.

This time, when he doesn’t respond, she prods him. “Are you feeling okay, Inuyasha? I was only joking when I asked if you were sick, but now…” she trails off, giving him a once over before surprising him when she pushes the back of her hand against his forehead. He’s too stunned to formulate a single word.

“It doesn’t feel like you have a fever,” she says, mostly to herself. “Does your stomach feel alright? I don’t think you’ve ever been speechless at the mention of food.”

She’s beginning to smell of oranges, which means she’s worried. It’s a strong smell that isn’t inherently unpleasant, unlike the stench of exhaustion, but he loathes it in this moment because she’s worried about him. How was she worried about him when he was supposed to be the one worrying about her?

 _Because Kagome is_ —

“Do you want to eat something else instead? I can make some rice; that might help your stomach feel better.”

 _Kagome is my_ —

“Inuyasha?” 

“Can you just shut _the fuck_ up?” he snaps, his words snarling together in a harsh exhale. 

They both jump. He’s shocked by his own outburst, and the smell of oranges vanishes as quickly as it had appeared. It’s replaced by the spice of cinnamon and the smoky embers of fire. He fights the urge to groan when the smell burns his nose. This was the scent that plagued him the most. The one that stayed when the others left. The one that had seared through his flesh, sank into his bones, and warmed his blood.

It makes him think about things he shouldn’t. 

He shouldn’t because Kagome is not Kikyo— _not that he and Kikyo had even_ —and she’s just (supposed to be) some dumb girl he’s using to find jewel shards.

“Inuyasha,” the tone of her voice is bordering a shrill scream, “You're _such_ an _asshole!_ You are so rude!”

It’s sick that he thinks she smells best when she’s angry. When she challenges him and yells at him in ways other humans were either too afraid or unwilling to do. Kikyo had challenged him, but she never raised her voice. The priestess had a way of flirting around her anger. She would tell him when he had displeased her, but he’d always held onto the suspicion that she was never being entirely forthcoming about her ire. Even when upset, there was a part of Kikyo that had to be in control. 

Kagome doesn’t care enough about that kind of thing to bother hiding how she feels or tiptoeing around her words when she’s angry. She seethes, she yells, she rants, and she screams. She can be bold and brash, not unlike Inuyasha. They are more similar than either of them would like to admit.

Kagome excites Inuyasha; she entices him. She absolutely fucking devours him.

Maybe it makes sense. Perhaps there’s something he just doesn’t know about how all this works. His mother had never taught him, and his father was too dead to have taught him anything at all. He wonders if, buried deep within the boundaries of his soul, he’s always known that it was Kagome. From the moment he met her.

_Not Kikyo, but Kagome._

“I was just trying to be nice,” she’s still fuming when she takes a pointed finger and pushes against his chest. “But, _oh no_ , you have to ruin everything!”

 _It was Kagome. Always Kagome. She was his._

“And for once,” she pushes again, harder, after he didn’t move the first time she pushed him, “I thought you were trying to be nice and cheer me up! You have such a foul mouth!”

_And maybe he would be hers._

“Are you gonna say anything for yourself?” She’s looking at him again, brown eyes narrowed in anger. 

_He wouldn’t mind that much._

“Hurry up and bathe, woman,” he grumbles, snatching her hand from his chest. “I’m hungry.”  


.  
.  
.  


_He wouldn’t mind being her soulmate._

**Author's Note:**

> thank you, again, for reading :')


End file.
